Mistress of Rome

  Another pause. Domitian glanced up from his letters and looked Paulinus in the eye. Paulinus looked back. He didn’t know what to do with his hands.

  The Emperor tilted his head at the servants, the guards, the scurrying secretaries. “Leave us.”

  They filed out, whispering.

  “I am putting your cousin Lappius forward for the position of consul next year. He’s a fool, but a fool can do relatively little harm as consul.” Domitian’s hands stilled for the first time, dropping the pen and thoughtfully tapping the desk. “Commander Trajan will have another military post that promises much action. I reward loyal men. I need them around me, for the day when some assassin tries for my life.”

  Paulinus remembered the mess hall rumors: The Emperor’s scared of his own shadow—

  “I know they say I’m afraid of my own shadow.” Domitian mirrored Paulinus’s thoughts again, and he jumped. “But with half of ten previous Emperors dying by the knife, I would be foolish not to fear assassins. It’s a dangerous job, being Emperor.” Domitian contemplated his fingertips. “I’m not asking for pity. But one gets . . . tired.”

  Paulinus felt an unexpected twist of sympathy. “I don’t envy you, Caesar,” he said candidly. “People might assume I want your job just because my great-grandfather was an Emperor. But I wouldn’t have it for anything.”

  Domitian looked at him sharply, opening his mouth. He closed it again, sharpness fading into speculation. “You know—” thoughtful—“I think I believe you.”

  They traded glances again, in simple curiosity.

  Domitian nodded once and reached for a sheet of parchment. He wrote out a rapid page, then stamped the Imperial seal at the bottom and tossed the still-wet document across the table at Paulinus.

  Paulinus skimmed the formal phrases. “. . . we hereby recognize Tribune Paulinus Vibius Augustus Norbanus . . . in reward for his loyalty and devotion . . . award the title and responsibilities of—”

  He blinked. Jumped back. Read more carefully. “Award the title and responsibilities of—”

  He lifted his eyes, astonished. “Caesar—it’s too much.”

  “I’ll be judge of that.”

  “Surely there must be more qualified men—”

  “Of course there are more qualified men. They will all loathe you for jumping over their heads and try to undermine you at every turn. Accept that position, and you make a hundred mortal enemies. Do you want it?”

  “Well—of course I want it, but—”

  “Then why are you trying to talk me out of it?”

  “I’m not trying to talk you out of it, Caesar. I just think that—”

  Domitian’s black eyes were amused. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to contradict an Emperor?”

  Paulinus felt his mouth opening and shutting like a fish’s. His ears were roaring. “Well. I didn’t mean to contradict you. Caesar. I just—”

  “Good.” The Imperial hand extended. “Congratulations, Prefect.”

  LEPIDA

  I really was glad that Saturninus’s little rebellion fizzled out in Germania. He wouldn’t have made a good Emperor at all. Everybody knew he liked boys, and where would that have left me? So I was quite relieved, along with the rest of Rome, when the rebellion had been crushed. There was a little bonus in it for me: Domitian would be sure to come back to the city at long last, and I had a new flame-orange stola encrusted with gold embroidery that would dazzle his eyes . . .

  “To think your son is the hero of the hour!” I trilled to Marcus over a rare supper. We scarcely saw each other now, keeping to our own wings of the house and meeting only for form’s sake. I was considering buying a house of my own, in a more fashionable district than the Capitoline Hill.

  “’Linus is a hero,” Sabina piped.

  “No he’s not, darling. Paulinus is an earthworm masquerading as a man.” I smiled at Marcus. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

  He looked through me as if I were made of glass. And he didn’t tell me The News. I had to learn from Gnaeus Apicus, my latest lover.

  “Praetorian Prefect?” I sat bolt upright in bed. “The Emperor’s appointed Paulinus as Praetorian Prefect?”

  “Astonishing, isn’t it? The boy can’t be much older than you”—Gnaeus pinched my breast—“and he’s only served as a tribune. High jump for one so young—”

  Praetorian Prefect. One of the most important posts in the Empire. The Emperor’s eyes and ears. Watchdog, spymaster, commander of the Imperium’s private army . . . Paulinus, suddenly one of the most powerful men in Rome.

  “Marcus, why didn’t you tell me?” I said sharply when I got home.

  He never lifted his eyes from the scroll he was reading. “One of your lovers was sure to give you the news.”

  I curled my lip and stamped off. How dare he keep me out of the know like that? News like this was enormous. I hadn’t planned to keep Paulinus on my string once he came back to Rome, but things were different now. He was the Emperor’s right arm now. He could get me an invitation to the palace every night of the week! Unless he’d forgotten me . . . but I didn’t really think so. And if he had, I’d make him remember in a hurry. I’d better write him a letter right away, to remind him.

  Perhaps I should marry him. Would it be legally possible? Rome had such tedious laws regarding incest.

  “My dear Paulinus . . .”

  PART THREE

  JULIA

  In the Temple of Vesta

  The fl ame on the altar is two fl ames. My eyes are hazy. Hunger. It makes me weak. Light-headed. Distant. A thousand miles away from this body I hate.

  “You’re too thin, Julia,” he frowns at me sometimes. Well, even a Caesar cannot have everything. I eat when he tells me to, and when he is gone I go to the lavatorium and vomit it all up. I have not taken food in a week. My body will disappear.

  My half-sister Flavia writes to me. Even from as far away as Syria, where her husband is governor, she has heard enough to be concerned. “I’ve heard some very strange rumors, my honey,” she wrote in her breathless slap-dash hand. “People do love to talk, don’t they? Our uncle must have raised taxes again, to have them making up such things. But enough gossip. Are you well, Justina? You don’t sound at all like yourself.”

  Justina. Our father’s pet name for me when I was little. Justina, because I looked as grave as a judge. No one calls me Justina anymore—no one except Flavia, who is a thousand miles away, and must not be allowed to worry.

  Marcus worries. Something has made him unhappy, but he still fi nds time to worry for me. “Eat something, Lady Julia. Keep up your strength.” He thinks I am mad.

  “Goodness, child, you really are much too thin,” the Empress said to me last week. Her manner toward me has never changed: calm, regal, polite. If anything, she looks at me with faint pity.

  Because of my uncle? Or because I am mad?

  I ate a little, when he was gone in Germania. But now he is coming back. I had a letter after Saturninus was killed, and what was in it melted the fl esh from me in the space of a moment. But then I looked at the letter again, and there was nothing in it but brusque pleasantries. Do I imagine it all? The images—they are so disjointed. I close my eyes and the only thing unwavering is the fl ame.

  Vesta, goddess of hearth and home, ask the Fates to cut my life short. It is taking much too long to starve.

  Fourteen

  THEA

  BRUNDISIUM, A. D. 90

  MY master was plump, bald, smiling, and airy, but two deep lines appeared on either side of his mouth when he was angry and turned him from a harmless praetor to a cold and furious judge. The two lines were very deeply graven today as I came into the sunny little atrium to stand before him on his silver couch. This was going to be bad.

  In a few clipped words he told me. “I’m so sorry, Dominus,” I said in low tones. “It won’t happen again.”

  “You’ve said that before, Thea. It always happens again.”


  “I’ll be more careful this time, Dominus. I promise.”

  “I’ve lost a good deal of money. And it’s more than money.”

  “I know.” He’d never been so angry before. I winced.

  “You know how rare Assyrian double pipes are?” Larcius glared. “I had to import them all the way from Thebes! Bought from the most tightfisted old haggler of an Arab the world has ever seen! And where are my Assyrian double pipes now? Smashed to smithereens by that ghastly child of yours!”

  “He was playing gladiator,” I said weakly.

  “He’s gladiating me out of house and home,” Larcius said darkly.

  “And it’s not just the pipes. He gave one of my choirboys a bloody nose yesterday.”

  “He was just roughhousing. It’s just—well, he plays hard.” He loves me hard . . . I turned the thought away. “He’s waiting to apologize now, Dominus. He’s very sorry.”

  My son came in on cue. His hair was plastered flat with water, he reeked of soap, and he wore the least destroyed of his tunics. He didn’t really look meek, as I’d hoped, but he had achieved a sort of foreboding silence. “Vercingetorix.” I prodded him to stand in front of Larcius. “You have something to say to our master.”

  Vix scuffed a hard bare foot along the mosaics. “Sorry.”

  “For what?” Poking him again.

  “Dunno.”

  “The pipes!”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “And the fight with the choirboy?” I prompted.

  “Weepy whiny pussy,” he said scornfully. “I’m not sorry for that.”

  “Vercingetorix—” I hissed.

  “I see,” said Larcius. “Go away, you horrid child, and try not to break anything for the rest of the day.”

  My son scuffed out scowling. “I’m sorry, Dominus,” I sighed. “I promise I’ll beat him.”

  “I’ve never seen it do a bit of good, but feel free. He’s reducing your inheritance, you know.”

  “My—inheritance?”

  A smile broke through Larcius’s frown, and he waved me to a stool before the couch. “That was the other reason I wanted to see you, child. I’ve changed my will to include you.”

  “You have?”

  “You’ll come into some money when I die. Your money—did you really think I would keep all your earnings? I’ve invested them for you. Except the amounts I’ve deducted for young Vix’s breakages. He’ll be freed along with you,” Larcius added a little dubiously, “when I’m dead. And I’m glad I won’t be around to see the havoc he’ll unleash on the civilized world.” He smiled as I flung myself forward and pressed my cheek against his plump hand.

  “Thank you! Thank you, thank you—you’re the kindest master, Dominus—”

  “Yes, yes. Go beat that dreadful child of yours, and then practice your scales. I still want to hear a smoother line on the last verse of ‘Silver Sea.’ ”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ll practice.” I bowed and all but danced out of the atrium. Free after he died! Larcius would live a long time, please God—but someday, by the time Vix was grown, we’d both be free. With a little money to start a life of our own. I could work for myself for a change—sing the music that I wanted, turn down the clients I didn’t like, stay home if I didn’t feel like performing . . .

  The house was a cheerful racket of people: Larcius’s slaves, his famed choirboys, his flute players, his lyre players, all herded into some kind of order by Penelope, the plain freedwoman who loved him like a wife. She seized my arm as I floated past, her curls vibrating with exasperation. “Thea, Vix was caught in the courtyard playing dice with beggars again—”

  Vix yowled as I took him by the ear and dragged him back to my cozy little room on the first floor. “OW! I wasn’t doing nothing! He was an old legionnaire, and he said if I won a round of dice he’d show me his sword! You know that kind of sword’s called a gladius? Can I—”

  “No, you cannot have a gladius!” I smacked him, and he bounded ahead of me down the hall, stabbing and feinting at each statue as he passed it. I reeled him in again. “And that was a dreadful apology to Larcius, Vix. He’d be within his rights to sell you.”

  “Think he’d sell me to a gladiator school?” Vix socked one scarred fist against the other. “Then I’ll learn how to cut ’em! I’ll take ’em apart! I’ll—”

  “You’re going to my room, not a gladiator school.” I twisted my hand into his russet hair and dragged him down the hall. He tried out a few new curses culled from the docks, and I smacked him a little wearily as I hauled him into my room. He’d decided this year that he was too big to sleep with his mother and had moved out to sleep in the choirboy loft. I doubted the choirboys thought it an improvement. My son was big for seven years old, and his hard little sunburned body already had a lot of scars: from a battle with a local bully, from a game of Julius Caesar and the Gauls, from a tavernkeeper who’d beaten him for stealing beer. My son Vix, short for Vercingetorix. I’d thought of naming him—well, naming him something else—but the name hurt my throat. So he was Vix.

  I wouldn’t have been able to keep him if Larcius hadn’t bought me from the waterfront brothel. Whores didn’t get to keep their children. My pimp would have ordered him left out on the hills to starve with all the other unwanted babies, no matter what I might have had to say about it. My son, left to die on an abandoned hillside when he was only days old. The thought of that still made me shiver.

  “You gonna thrash me?” He caught the momentary softness in my eye.

  “Not today. But you’ll stay here the rest of the day. And no dinner.”

  He flopped down on my bed, grinning. He didn’t know who his father was, of course—few slave children had legitimate fathers. Vix never dreamed that his was Rome’s greatest gladiator. He would have loved that, my son who dreamed of ringside glory and gravitated toward weapons like a moth toward a candle. Brundisium had no arena, thank God, and this my son regretted deeply. If I told Vix his father was Arius the Barbarian, he’d get to the Colosseum if he had to crawl every step of the way. And that I wouldn’t do to Arius. Let him think it ended with us. Never let him know that, two hundred miles away, he had a seven-year-old son growing up into a tough little russet-haired copy of himself. Never let him know, because it’s the knowing that kills.

  ROME

  A naumachia!” Gallus drew eager figures on his account slates. “A sea battle for the Saeculares games! Oh, won’t that draw the crowds. Ever seen a naumachia, boy? They flood the Colosseum with water pumped out of the Tiber, and bring in warships manned with gladiators. Can you swim?”

  Arius drained the last drop of wine from his mug. “Yes.”

  “Good, good. I’ve seen quite a few good gladiators get knocked into the water and simply sink. Pity if that were to happen to you.”

  Arius hurled a toneless obscenity and swung out.

  “You’d better be going to practice!” Gallus’s voice followed him down the hall: “You’re not so young anymore, you know. You can’t afford to get complacent!”

  In the new training courtyard that had been built with his prize money, Arius fought four practice bouts. By the end he was winded and panting. No, he wasn’t so young anymore. Thirty-three? Thirty-five? Old enough to wake up every morning feeling so exhausted, so crippled and abused to the core of his bones, that he could barely hobble out of bed. Thirty-five years or so, eight of those years spent in the arena. A long career; three times the length of most gladiators. His fights were scheduled months in advance, his fortune—Gallus’s—had been made several times over. He was feted and cheered wherever he went, he dined at all the great patrician houses, his name was a household word among fighters and spectators alike. They said he was the greatest gladiator Rome had ever known.

  Eight years, he thought dully. Eight years.

  “Another bout?” the trainer asked, respectful.

  “No.”

  “You wouldn’t last another bout, you flabby savage,” came a hoarse little voice from
the sidelines. “You’re getting old, Barbarian.”

  “Not too old to heave you over the wall, dwarf.”

  “Better a dwarf than a numbskull.” Hercules made a rude gesture. Blue-eyed, bearded, audacious, and three feet tall, he fought comic preludes in the arena to Arius’s fights.

  Arius snagged a towel and swiped his forehead. Hercules eyed him disapprovingly. “You’re breathing much too hard.”

  “I’m drunk.”

  “You’re always drunk. You’re a sieve. Here, have some more. Thin as piss, but it’s got a good kick.”

  They drank sour wine in amiable silence: Arius slouched against the wall, eyes closed to the sun; Hercules with an absurd sunshade over his head and his feet dangling high off the ground. An odd sight, but too familiar to attract second glances. Everyone knew that the Barbarian and the dwarf were inseparable.

  “Hello there,” Hercules had introduced himself a year ago in his odd hoarse voice. “I’m new. You must be the meat.”

  Arius had blinked. “The what?”

  “The meat. The crowd’s main meal. Me, I’m an appetizer.”

  A mutter of warning drifted over from the next table: “Better watch who you’re callin’ meat, little man.”

  “That’s what he is,” Hercules said coolly.

  “You’ve got a mouth,” Arius growled.

  “I’ve worked freak shows, arenas, and provincial fairs,” said the dwarf. “The gigs are all the same: make people laugh, and try not to get your teeth kicked in. I’m good enough at the first, but not the second. As you say, I’ve got a mouth. So if a dwarf is going to get beaten up”—an elaborate bow toward Arius—“why not get beaten up by the best?”

  Arius had found himself smiling. Rustily, but still smiling. He pushed his wine jug across the table at the dwarf. “Want to get drunk?” And they’d gotten drunk.

  Hercules peered out from under his sunshade. “So what’s this I hear about a sea battle? I suppose you’ll be cast as Neptune the Almighty and I’ll be cast as you. They always cast me as you, now. I’m much prettier, but I’ve got that sour scowl down pat. Plus,” he added, “my cock is bigger than yours.”